The use of triazoles for inhibiting the corrosion of copper and iron alloys in a wide variety of aqueous and non-aqueous systems is well known. In industrial cooling water systems, benzotriazole and tolyltriazole are used most often. Tolyltriazole is generally preferred because of its lower cost. Triazoles are film forming materials that provide efficient coverage of metal or metal oxide surfaces in a system thereby providing protection against corrosive elements present in an aqueous system. In addition to the film forming tendency of various azoles, they also precipitate soluble, divalent copper ions. The precipitation prevents transport of copper ions to ferrous surfaces, where galvanic reactions between copper ions and iron atoms leads to pitting corrosion of the ferrous metal.
While the use of azoles for corrosion inhibition is widespread, there are drawbacks to their use, specifically with tolyltriazole. The most important drawbacks are experienced when azoles are used in combination with oxidizing halogens. Oxidizing halogens such as elemental chlorine, bromine, their hypohalous acids, or their alkaline solutions (i.e., solutions of hypochlorite or hypobromite ion) are the most common materials used to control microbiological growth in cooling water systems. When copper or iron alloys that have previously been protected with azoles are exposed to an oxidizing halogen, corrosion protection breaks down. After breakdown, it is difficult to form new protective films in tolyltriazole treated cooling systems that are being chlorinated, particularly continuously chlorinated. Very high dosages of tolyltriazole are frequently applied in an attempt to improve performance, often with limited success.
The degradation of protection of azole films in the presence of oxidizing halogens is well-documented in the literature. For example, R. Holm, et al., concluded that hypochlorite penetrates an intact triazole film, leading to higher corrosion rates, and that secondly, hypochlorite attacks the prefilmed triazole surface, disrupting or degrading the film (53rd Annual Meeting of the International Water Conference, Paper No. IWC-92-40, 1992). Lu, et al., also studied interactions of triazole films with hypochlorite on copper and copper alloy surfaces ("Effects of Halogenation on Yellow Metal Corrosion: Inhibition by Triazoles", Corrosion, 50, 422 (1994)). Lu, et al., concluded:
(a) prefilmed tolyltriazole on copper and brass surfaces undergoes decomposition during chlorination; PA1 (b) the stability of prefilmed tolyltriazole on copper and brass to NaOCl was improved when tolyltriazole was added to the hypochlorite solution; PA1 (c) clean (i.e., non-prefilmed) copper surfaces did not develop good protective films when placed in solutions containing mixtures of tolyltriazole and NaOCl.
Thus, the combination of tolyltriazole with NaOCl did not produce a composition capable of efficient film formation and corrosion inhibition.
The nature of the reaction products when azoles are exposed to oxidizing halogens in a cooling water system is not clear. The literature teaches that a compound is formed when chlorine and tolyltriazole are combined in cooling waters, and that it responds to analytical tests for chlorine. For example, Vanderpool, et al., state that chlorine reacts reversibly with tolyltriazole to produce N-chloro-tolyltriazole. They specifically state, "presumably this compound is not itself an inhibitor." Rather, they teach that it is readily hydrolyzed to the original tolyltriazole and hypochlorous acid so that free tolyltriazole becomes available for corrosion inhibition ("Improving the Corrosion Inhibitor Efficiency of Tolyltriazole in the Presence of Chlorine and Bromine", NACE Corrosion/87, Paper No. 157 (1987)). Hollander and May stated they were able to isolate 1-chloro-tolyltriazole from stored, more highly concentrated solutions, but they also teach that "at low concentrations (less than 10 mg/L) rapid hydrolysis made it impossible to isolate the chloro adducts." Based upon proton NMR analysis, the material Hollander and May isolated was chloro-tolyltriazole.
Another observation is that a very characteristic odor is present whenever tolyltriazole and chlorine are combined in cooling waters.
In contrast, chloro-tolytriazole does not respond to analytical tests for chlorine, despite extended boiling. And solutions of chloro-tolyltriazole, surprisingly, do not produce the characteristic odor. Thus chloro-tolyltriazole is clearly different from the tolyltriazole-chlorine reaction product that forms in-situ in cooling water systems.
There are also references in the literature to 5-chlorobenzotriazole (i.e., CAS number [94-97-3]). In "The Water Drop", Volume I No. 2, 1985, Puckorius & Associates state that chlorinated tolyltriazole is effective as a corrosion inhibitor and cite R. P. Carr as a reference. A literature review of published work by Carr indicates that he actually teaches that reactions between tolyltriazole and chlorine do not occur under cooling water conditions ("The Performance of Tolyltriazole in the Presence of Sodium Hypochlorite Under Simulated Field Conditions", NACE Corrosion/83 Paper No. 283, 1983). In this Corrosion/83 paper, Carr does discuss the inhibiting action of a chloro-azole, but it is a reference to earlier literature, and specifically to the action of 5-chlorobenzotriazole and related aryl substituted azoles in sulfuric acid solutions ("Effects of Substituted Benzotriazole on the Electrochemical Behavior of Copper in H.sub.2 SO.sub.4 ", Wu et al., Corrosion, Volume 37, No. 4, 223 (1981)). Since the 1985 Puckorius reference, there has been widespread use of tolyltriazole in chlorinated cooling systems with well established performance difficulties, indicating a continuing, unsolved problem in the art.
Other problems are well-known when tolyltriazole and oxidizing halogens are combined in cooling waters. These include a loss in the extent of precipitation of transition metal ions such as copper, thus leading to improved transport and galvanic corrosion, a change in the response of the standard spectrophotometric test for tolyltriazole, leading to unintentional overfeed, and the objectionable odor mentioned above. This odor can be sensed even when the cooling water originally contained 1 ppm tolyltriazole, or less. Since cooling water often passes over cooling towers, evaporation and drift release the objectionable odor to the local environment.
It is believed that the odorous material is N-chloro-tolyltriazole, that it forms OCl.sup.- reversibly with tolyltriazole in dilute solution, and that it is absent in the final product when the reaction is run in concentrated solution, i.e., tolyltriazole+OCl.sup.- .fwdarw.N-chloro-tolyltriazole- (intermediate).fwdarw.chloro-tolyltriazole. There is no evidence of reversion of chloro-tolyltriazole to either the odorous intermediate or to tolyltriazole. Nor is there any evidence of reactions between hypochlorite and chloro-tolyltriazole in dilute aqueous solutions.